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D. Banfield (Cornell U.), M.D. Smith (NASA Goddard), M.J. Wolff (Space Science Institute), A. Ghosh (U. Tennessee), N. Spanovich (U. Arizona), P. Christensen (Arizona State U.), Athena Science Team
The MER rovers have been operating on the surface of Mars for over 500 sols as of this writing. Over that time, the Mini-TES instruments on each rover have acquired a total of at least 4000 atmospherically targeted sequences with scientific goals ranging from temperature probing of the atmospheric boundary layer, monitoring short-term boundary layer dynamics, and dust spectral/vertical distribution characterization. The more than 500 sol history to date of the MER rovers on the surface of Mars covers roughly 3/4 of a martian year. Thus, the rovers have comprised a remarkable record of the local seasonal trends in the lower atmospheric temperatures and total atmospheric infrared optical depth over that time. In addition to documenting the seasonal changes of the mean temperatures, the diurnal temperature variations and their seasonal changes are also reasonably well characterized by the MER Mini-TES observations. We will report on all of the progress on MER Mini-TES atmospheric science from both Spirit and Opportunity.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: banfield@astro.cornell.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.